Tag Archives: automakers

Reuters reports: Volkswagen will develop its final generation of vehicles using combustion engine technology in 2026, the company’s strategy chief said today. VW made a strategy shift toward battery-driven vehicles in the wake of a damaging diesel-emissions cheating scandal in 2015, which forced the carmaker to pay billions of dollars in fines for hiding excessive pollution. “In the year 2026 …

ABC News reports: President Donald Trump, in a tweet early Thursday morning, downplayed General Motors’ announcement it was shuttering several U.S. factories and laying off thousands of American workers, claiming it was an anomaly among the broader “booming” U.S. economy. In doing so, though, the president repeated his frequent false claim that steel plants are opening all over the country. …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump will consider cutting all subsidies to General Motors after the company announced plans to slash productions at several American plants, he said Tuesday. The automaker’s shares fell following the tweet and were down more than 2 percent on Tuesday afternoon. The tweet escalates the president’s public threats against GM as he pushes the company to …

The Chicago Tribune reports: General Motors will lay off 14,700 factory and white-collar workers in North America and put five plants up for possible closure as it restructures to cut costs and focus more on autonomous and electric vehicles. The reduction includes 8,100 white-collar workers, some of whom will take buyouts and others who will be laid off. Most of …

USA Today reports: Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co.’s influential chairman Carlos Ghosn was fired and arrested Monday after an internal probe found he underreported his salary and for other financial violations, including the personal use of company assets, the firm and Japanese state media said. Nissan said in a statement that Ghosn would be dismissed after an internal probe based …

Axios reports: Sale of the one millionth electric vehicle in the U.S. is likely to occur this month, according to an estimate by the group Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) that’s based on data compiled by Inside EVs. It’s a symbolic threshold that signals growing adoption of the technology, even though it remains a small part of the overall U.S. …

Reuters reports: A federal appeals court on Monday upheld Volkswagen’s $10.03 billion settlement with the owners of nearly 500,000 polluting diesel vehicles announced in 2016. The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said, in dismissing a number of objections to the settlement, that it “delivered tangible, substantial benefits to class members, seemingly the equivalent of — …

The Washington Post reports: For as long as Donald Trump has been president, he has been threatening to slap tariffs on foreign carmakers to stop flashy German vehicles from “flooding” American streets. On Friday, he repeated the threat and attached a specific number, tweeting about a 20 percent tariff on all automobile imports from Europe. Car tariffs are shaping up …

NPR reports: Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his government “cannot accept” new U.S. tariffs on imported automobiles, as is reportedly being considered as a possible next move by the White House. President Trump last week launched an investigation into whether auto imports posed a national security risk to the U.S., a justification that might be used to raise the …

CNBC reports: President Donald Trump is preparing to impose a total ban on German luxury carmakers from the U.S. market, according to an exclusive report by German magazine WirtschaftsWoche. Citing several unnamed U.S. and European diplomats, the weekly business magazine reported that Trump told French President Emmanuel Macron last month he would maintain his trade policy with the aim of …

Bloomberg reports: Automakers urged the White House to cooperate with California officials in a coming rewrite of vehicle efficiency standards, saying “climate change is real.” The plea came in a letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry’s leading trade group. It said carmakers “strongly support” continued alignment between federal …

The BBC reports: Carmaker Volvo has said all new models will have an electric motor from 2019. The Chinese-owned firm, best known for its emphasis on driver safety, has become the first traditional carmaker to signal the end of the internal combustion engine. It plans to launch five fully electric models between 2019 and 2021 and a range of hybrid …

So much for “clean diesel.” NBC News reports: Volkswagen will pay a $4.3 billion penalty for diesel emissions rigging, the U.S. Justice Department and several other federal agencies announced on Wednesday. As a result of the criminal investigation into the diesel scandal, regulators also revealed that six executives have been indicted on charges ranging from wire fraud to conspiracy to …

Think Progress reports: On Sunday, FCA US, the parent company of Fiat and Chrysler, announced that it will spend $1 billion to expand plants in Michigan and Ohio and create 2,000 more jobs in the U.S. The move, as the company made clear in its press release, is simply the next phase in an expansion plan it announced last year …

CNBC reports: General Motors disputed the facts in Donald Trump’s Tuesday morning attack on the automaker, saying it makes most of its Chevy Cruze models in the United States. The company said in a statement that “all Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S.” are made at an assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. It clarified that it builds hatchback models …

Reuters reports: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Ford Motor Co Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr told him the automaker would not move a Kentucky plant to Mexico, but the firm said it informed him the decision was to keep one vehicle in U.S. production. On Thursday, Trump posted on Twitter: “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln …

Via Detroit’s ABC affiliate: A former Ford Motor Company contractor says he was fired because he criticized the auto company for having a policy that is pro-gay, according to a complaint filed with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Thomas Banks of Ypsilanti, who also filed his EEOC complaint against Rapid Global Business Solutions, stated that the companies violated his …

General Motors will now recognize same-sex marriages for the purposes of insurance and pension benefits. “GM will recognize a legal marriage for U.S. employees no matter the state of residence,” the automaker said in a statement. “For example, if a GM employee residing in Michigan, where same-sex marriage is not recognized, got married in New York, GM would recognize that …

Via Breitbart: A group of pro-union, progressive protesters leveled a large tent with people inside during Tuesday’s demonstrations outside the Michigan Capitol building in Lansing against right to work legislation. The protesters shouted “scab” and “Walmart tent” as they advanced. The tent, one of many at the demonstration, had been put up by the pro-right to work group Americans For …

Ford Motor Company has announced that this will be the last year of production for their Mercury line. Mercury’s demise follows a string of famous American nameplates that have been dropped over the last year, including General Motors Co.’s Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer. Ford plans to focus on the design and marketing of its more upscale Lincoln brand — including …